


Family Bakery Cafe ~ A Haibun

by DxTURA



Category: Original Work
Genre: Based on Real Events, F/M, Haiku Variant, Poetry, haibun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 15:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17082545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DxTURA/pseuds/DxTURA
Summary: Haibuns are my third favorite poem I’ve experimented with. They are poems that require you to write a prose poem, but also end it with a haiku. This was a poem that made me cry, but I enjoyed writing it all the same. It revolved around one of my dates that my boyfriend and I had in Toronto.Submitted to my school's literary magazine; originally posted 4/27/17.





	Family Bakery Cafe ~ A Haibun

My bitter coffee, complemented by cake. The sandwich you hold, protected by plastic. The shopkeeper tacks away at the register. I sit in the nearest chair, in the center. Everyone watches me balance my “moose cake” slice. Why do they call it that if it doesn’t look like a moose?

Oh, MOUSSE cake? Spelt like M-O-U-S-S-E? My mistake. Of course I know what mousse cake is! The anchor distracted me with moose sighting reports. I wonder how many the family saw. How would you refer to more than one? Do you call them mooses? Meese? Am I asking stupid questions? Do politicians question the forms of the word?

Canadian politics, they’re nonexistent on TV. The same news has circulated three times. I heard less about Donald Trump today than I have in a year. Your eyes face your phone; were you listening? I only saw weather reports. I only saw children bagging clothes and cans for charity. I avert my gaze to the window. I watch the crystal water stain the city. I want more of it to fall on me. _You wanted it to snow_ , you said to me. I laugh; _of course I wanted it to snow_. I feel at ease watching the city turn white; the wrinkled men to my right uttered words about shoveling. The pinnacle of Canadian troubles.

I shovel cake into my mouth while you munch on that sandwich. I ignore the sculpted, white chocolate slivers and focus on the cake’s form. Soft, like cushions. Soft, like the children that laughed and shared meals with their parents. Yet filling, like the piano notes that replayed in the café’s background. People come and go. The woman smiles. She does what she loves.

I do what I love. Travel. I came to see you. I came to see Toronto. _I will treat you like a citizen, not a tourist_ , you proudly proclaimed. Warmth ran across my spine as your words echoed in my ears. If this is home, then I want to stay. I do not want to leave. I take my time finishing the cake; I have sliced it into smaller pieces. You finish before me, so I scarf down the remaining bits. We stand up and wave to the woman. Our footsteps tap against the floor, then back into the snow.

_Leaves sprout on tree twigs—_  
_I serve myself coffee, hot_.  
_Maple syrup sweet_. 


End file.
